Just ten years ago, I sat across the desk from a doctor with a stethoscope. "Yes," he said, "there is a lesion in the left, upper lobe¹. You have a moderately advanced case…" I listened, stunned², as he continued, "You'll have to give up work at once and go to bed. Later on, we'll see." He gave no assurances.

十年前的一天，我坐在一名手持听诊器的医生对面。“你的左肺叶上部确实有一处坏损，而且病情正在恶化”——听到这里，我整个人一下懵了。“你必须停止工作卧床休息，有待观察。”医生对我的病情也是不置可否。

 

Feeling like a man who in mid-career has suddenly been placed under sentence of death with an indefinite reprieve³, I left the doctor's office, walked over to the park, and sat down on a bench, perhaps, as I then told myself, for the last time. I needed to think. In the next three days, I cleared up my affairs; then I went home, got into bed, and set my watch to tick off not the minutes, but the months. 2 years and many dashed hopes later, I left my bed and began the long climb back. It was another year before I made it.

就这样，事业方面方兴未艾的我仿佛突然被人判了死刑，却说不准何时执刑。我离开医生的办公室，来到公园的长椅上坐下。这也许是最后一次来这儿了，我对自己说。我真得好好整理一下思绪。接下来的三天我把手头的事务全部处理完毕。我回到家，躺到床上，然后把手表从显示分钟改为显示月份。两年半的时间过去了，在无数次的失望之后，我终于可以离开病床，艰难地向从前的生活状态回归。一年之后，我做到了。

 

I speak of this experience because these years that past so slowly taught me what to value and what to believe. They said to me: Take time, before time takes you. I realize now that this world I'm living in is not my oyster⁴ to be opened but my opportunity to be grasped. Each day, to me, is a precious entity⁵. The sun comes up and presents me with 24 brand new, wonderful hours—not to pass, but to fill.

我之所以谈起这段经历，是因为那段度日如年的岁月让我懂得应该珍惜什么，信仰什么。那段岁月让我明白一个道理：牢牢抓住时间，而不是让时间将你套牢。现在我终于明白，我生活着的这个世界不是等待我去打开的一扇牡蛎，而是需要我去抓住的一个机会。每一天我都视若珍宝，每一轮太阳带给我的崭新的二十四小时都鲜活而精彩，我绝不可将其虚度。

 

I've learned to appreciate those little, all-important things I never thought I had the time to notice before: the play of light on running water, the music of the wind in my favorite pine tree. I seem now to see and hear and feel with some of the recovered freshness of childhood. How well, for instance, I recall the touch of the springy earth under my feet the day I first stepped upon it after the years in bed. It was almost more than I could bear. It was like regaining⁶ one's citizenship⁷ in a world one had nearly lost.

如今，我仿佛重返童年，又觉得自己所见所闻所感的一切都那么新鲜。当我卧床数年后重新将双脚踏在大地上的那一刻，脚下那久违了的松软土壤让我激动得情难自抑，仿佛重新拥有我差一点就失去的世界。

 

Frequently, I sit back and say to myself, Let me make note of this moment I'm living right now, because in it I'm well, happy, hard at work doing what I like best to do. It won't always be like this, so while it is I'll make the most of it—and afterwards, I remember—and be grateful. All this, I owe to that long time spent on the sidelines of life. Wiser people come to this awareness⁸ without having to acquire it the hard way. But I wasn't wise enough. I'm wiser now, a little, and happier.

我现在时常舒舒服服地坐着，提醒自己要记住当下的每分每秒，因为现在的我健康、快乐，能努力做自己最爱做的工作。这一切如此美好，却终将消逝，在如此美好的生活消逝之前，我一定要倍加珍惜。在它逝去之后，我会记得曾经拥有的美好，并心存感激。这一切改变都得益于我在生命边缘徘徊的那几年。智者无需被逼到如此境地也能明白这些道理——可惜我从前太愚钝。现在的我比从前多了几分睿智，我也因此更加快乐。

 

"Look thy last on all things lovely, every hour." With these words, Walter de la Mare⁹ sums up for me my philosophy and my belief. God made this world—in spite of what man now and then tries to do to unmake it—a dwelling¹⁰ place of beauty and wonder, and He filled it with more goodness than most of us suspect. And so I say to myself, Should I not pretty often take time to absorb the beauty and the wonder, to contribute a least a little to the goodness? And should I not then, in my heart, give thanks? Truly, I do. This I believe.

英国诗人沃尔特.德拉.梅尔曾说过：“时刻记住，最后看一眼所有美好的事物！”这句诗正好总结了我的人生哲学与信仰。上帝创造的这个世界——这个人类时常试图毁灭的世界——是个美丽奇妙的家园。这里充满了上帝所赐予的美好事物，超过我们大多数人的想象。我于是常常自问，难道自己不应该去细细品味这些美丽与奇迹，尽绵薄之力去创造世间的美好吗？难道我不应心存感激吗？我确实应该——这就是我的信仰。

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